Rolling trans arts thread

hahaha not surprised none of y'all bit at that, i shouldn't be biting either

i mean, yeah. transgressive art. the thing that came to mind for me was ballard's "why i want to fuck ronald reagan".

i grew up in that sort of world where offending people was a goal, where the worst thing was being "inoffensive". nowadays, it's more a matter of who i'm hurting and how ok i am with that. i'm ok with hurting some people in some ways.

i don't know if i posted it here, but i wrote something on a similar issue. i think it's an _interesting_ topic. i posted a link to it somewhere in a trans discord, with appropriate CWs, and the feedback i got was that a lot of trans people would be... uncomfortable with that.

i felt that was honest feedback and good feedback. there's some shit that's hard for me to deal with in ways that don't hurt people who, i feel, just don't deserve to be hurt. there's no big huge Issue here, nothing to make big speeches about. even though i don't know, maybe i'm making one, maybe clark (whose conclusions, ultimately, i don't think i agree with) was making one.

there are a lot of things that don't have easy answers, can't be determined by any set of Principles. i have to take them on a case by case basis. i've met people who were out as trans before me, way before me. i couldn't be who i am if they weren't who they were. and they self-identify as a word that, to me, that's a slur. i'm not even going to use that word here, and if that makes what i'm talking about more vague, fine.

i was talking with someone yesterday, and they were talking about wanting to reclaim that word. they can want that. the person who has identified with that word for decades, they have the right, and nothing is going to erase the fundamental respect and admiration i have for them.

i'm also, i think, probably always going to be hurt by that word. i'm not interested in reclaiming it. there are some topics that, no matter how one talks about or explains it or Contextualizes it, talking about those things are going to hurt people. that's sort of a painful learning experience for anyone who has it.

There was some discussion of it on the Literary Clusterfucks thread. I thought it was a really powerful story. I also think that literature is a really important and useful place to explore feelings of ambivalence (or even hatred) about yourself, and while for some people that is going to bring up really bad shit, for others it provides solace and connection. Oppositional/countercultural/marginalised lit has had a long tradition of ending in despair, and I think it's great that there has been a move to show more hopefulness, but I don't want to read your utopia, there's no place for me there. I'm looking for companionship in a world where things will only get worse.

Re: reclamation of terms, there are a lot of people who still feel that way about queer! It's such a positive term for me that I have to check myself not to use it before sussing out if people are comfortable with it.

ah i totally missed the literary clusterfucks thread (took me a while to find it because i was looking for it on ILB and not ILE).

so i found time to read the story, not because i much wanted to, but because if i'm going to talk about it i should have some minimal knowledge of it. it was sort of what i thought. a lot of paranoia and self-doubt in there, a lot of talk about war which i kind of skimmed over, since it's not a topic i find interesting or a topic i can much relate to.

i'm not opposed to anybody who wants to reclaim any word or phrase. i'm not saying they can't or shouldn't prioritize that. i think "queer" is a wonderful word, perhaps the first word that meant something to me (it would pop up in some of the older children's books i read but i knew somehow, cultural osmosis, that it meant more than that). i also don't think that reclamation is as simple or straightforward as lenny bruce made it sound.

i also agree with you about the therapeutic power of literature. i've written a lot of dark shit. writing that stuff, going there, has been a key part of my journey. i wouldn't dream of publishing any of it, though, because it's pretty awful, because i got a lot of bullshit in my head and i try to be respectful about where and how i put that bullshit on other people.

i don't know ms. fall, i don't know what drives her, but i have found it easy to underestimate how much hurt delving into that liminal shit can cause to other people.

i smile a lot, i laugh a lot, and i don't tend talk about dark shit. partly because i sound like a teenage goth girl when i do, partly because i have the tendency to ruminate, partly because it is fucking terrifying to think of what i might be capable of, under certain circumstances.

so i don't have a utopia for you. the closest to utopia is me, where i live now, and it's a shitty goddamn utopia, that's for sure. but i don't have any dystopias for you either. i don't know shit about the future, and i'm not sure anybody else does either; i'm just trying to survive, have the best present i can, and help give the people i care about the opportunities i have.

Oh, I meant the general you in 'your utopia', not you specifically! Sorry if that sounded dismissive of you.

i figured as such, but i wanted to cover my bases. :) i know the school of literature you're talking about - "hey why don't we write more stories about space elevators" or whatever - and i don't find those utopias entirely convincing. i don't subscribe to the philosophy that says our problems are going to be solved by technology, whether that's space elevators or gcs.

On consideration I'm not sure I agree with the hypothesis. I don't think "soldier" is a gender. I mean I know the joke is that it stands for "Assigned Cop At Birth" but it's just a pun, it doesn't speak to some deeper truth.

See, I'm always a woman, but I'm not always a woman first. Whatever else you are, if you're a cop, you're a cop first.

loved and highly recommend this show; it's a fun time:

https://publictheater.org/productions/joes-pub/2020/j/joes-pub-live-from-the-archives--becca-blackwell-schmermies-choice

(streaming free on Saturday April 4 at 7pm EST)

i don't really watch movies but this film "bit" out tomorrow sounds potentially interesting

oh yah? the vampire comedy? I thought that was due out in June, presumably COVID timeshifted. will likely watch.